Increasing your emotional resilience: 4 steps from Susan David

Increasing your emotional resilience: 4 steps from Susan David

LemonGrass Coaching on how to increase your emotional resilience in four steps from Suzan David. Illustrated by a practical case of Sophie, a project manager who got stuck in an ‘always-have-to-be-ready’ narrative.

What kind of story do you tell about yourself?
Last week was Marjon Bohré keynote speaker at the Noloc knowledge festival. In her inspiring presentation, she explained how we often get stuck in the story we tell ourselves about who we are. As long as that story sounds logical, we continue to hold onto it. This applies to both the positive and the limiting stories we tell ourselves. Think of short statements like: “I am successful”, “I am honest”, “I am insecure”, “I am a people-pleaser”, “I am boring”. Through so-called ‘confirmation bias’, we constantly seek information that confirms our self-image.

It's easy to see how a negative story can limit us, but we often don't realise that a positive story can be just as limiting. Suppose you consider yourself “a very social type who is always there for others.” Before you know it, you feel you have to be social all the time and unconsciously feel the pressure to be constantly social and always ready for others. Then even a positive story about yourself has a negative impact on your life.

See through your story and detach yourself from it
The challenge lies in two areas: freeing yourself from limiting narratives (are you even aware of the story you tell yourself?) and increasing your psychological flexibility so that you no longer feel confined by a restrictive suit that you've tailored for yourself. Our team at LemonGrass Coaching is, of course, happy to help you with this if you get stuck, and for this, we have numerous perspectives and methods. We are also happy to share practical tips that you can use immediately to help yourself move forward.

And then I'd like to return to Marjon Bohré, who gave a presentation on emotional agility. In this, she draws partly from the work of Brené Brown and Susan David. David describes a four-step process that helps to increase your emotional agility and psychological flexibility: accepting your emotions, breaking unwanted patterns, and living according to your values. The model aligns closely with the ACT ideology.

 Boost your emotional resilience in four steps:

1. Arriving: do not suppress emotions, but be present with them. To be aware of how something feels at this moment. This piece is also about not going through life armoured, but seeing if you can give a glimpse into what's in your heart. As far as I'm concerned, this is one of the biggest challenges for us humans, because we prefer not to move towards painful emotions. We'd rather arm ourselves against them.
2. Stepping out Stepping out of emotions and seeing more/a different perspective. Realising that you have thoughts, but that you are not them. You can only take this step if there was first room for your emotions. So it's best to first feel and express your emotions, in that way you detach from them and create space to see things differently.
3. Walk your why: Examine your previous emotions more closely. What does this emotion tell you about what you consider important? When you know what is valuable to you, you can use it as a compass for decisions. It gives so much energy when you let yourself be guided in life by things that you find valuable, rather than being led by fear or other hindrances.
4. Moving onFormulate small, achievable adjustments in your mindset and habits. Think about what small action you can take to lead a fulfilling life. Often, we are inclined to want too much at once and define our first steps as too large, which creates all sorts of obstacles, thus preventing any progress. So keep it simple and realise that it's better to take small steps forward than no steps at all.

For example: Sophie – the caring project manager
To further clarify these four steps, here is a practical case as an example of someone who increased her emotional resilience. It concerns the example of Sophie, a 38-year-old project manager working at a medium-sized IT company. She sees herself as “a sociable person who is always there for others, meaning she often answers the last email before going home, sets aside her own work to help colleagues and even works from home to meet deadlines. After a year, she notices exhaustion, sleepless nights and a growing fear of not doing enough. She decides to apply the four steps.

1. Showing up – allowing emotion. Sophie feels a constricting sensation in her chest when she thinks about her work. Instead of pushing the tension away, she acknowledges the physical sensation and lets the emotion be present “in the room”.
2. Stepping out – distancing yourself from the thought. She notices the thought, “If I don't respond immediately, I'm a bad colleague.” By labelling this thought as a “thought,” she realises she is not that thought and creates distance from it.
3. Walk your why – discovering values. Sophie discovers that her true drive is to help and grow others. She formulates her intention: to use her social talent, but within time and energy estimates that respect her own recovery.
4. Moving on – Three small, concrete actions. She implements three micro-actions: (a) One 30-minute email block per day. (b) A brief check-in before each meeting (“What is my intention?”). (c) Writing down a positive experience from the day to mark the transition from work to home life. These small steps help her to let go of her old self-narrative and experience more psychological space.

Result
This already leads to fewer sleepless nights for her after two weeks, and less guilt when she doesn't immediately reply to a message. This leaves her with much more energy during moments when she's truly helping.

Experimenting?
Try applying the four steps yourself to a moment when you notice you're stuck in your own story. You'll discover how small, conscious choices can immediately give you more space and emotional resilience. And if you'd rather get started with one of the coaches from LemonGrass coaching, you are most welcome, please contact Contact via info@lemongrasscoaching.nl.